London and Miami
A Tale of Cops in Two Cities by Alexander Cockburnwww.dissidentvoice.org
December 4,
2003

The
climax of the big demonstrations against President Bush on his recent London
jaunt was the toppling of a papier-mache statue of the commander in chief --
a reprise on the carefully staged pulling down of Saddam's statue in Baghdad
earlier this year. If those London jokesters had tried this in Miami during
the recent protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit, it's
a pretty safe bet they would have been gassed, tasered with electric stun
guns, battered with rubber bullets, arrested and charged with felony counts
costing them thousands until a judge threw the charges out.

Mainstream coverage of the
protests has missed a very big story, which is Miami proved once again that
these days, lawful political protest is a very dangerous business. The top
cop in Miami was none other than Miami Police Chief John Timoney. Back in
the summer of 2000, this same Timoney was police chief in Philadelphia,
trampling on rights to lawful assembly during the Republican National
Convention. His storm troopers were found later by the courts to have had
infiltrated protesters' meetings and acted as agents provocateurs; to have
acted with undue force; to have illegally detained peaceful protesters. The
macabre climax of Timoney's rampages was the arrest of John Sellers of the
Ruckus Society as he walked down the street. Sellers famously became the
first American ever accused of brandishing a cellphone with intent to commit
a crime. Bail for Sellers was initially set at $1 million before a judge
threw the charges out.

"No one should call what
Timoney runs in Miami a police force. It's a paramilitary group. Thousands
of soldiers, dressed in khaki uniforms with full black body armor and gas
masks, marching in unison through the streets, banging batons against their
shields, chanting, 'back . back . back.' There were armored personnel
carriers and helicopters.

"The forces fired
indiscriminately into crowds of unarmed protesters. Scores of people were
hit with skin-piercing rubber bullets; thousands were gassed with an array
of chemicals. On several occasions, police fired loud concussion grenades
into the crowds. Police shocked people with electric tasers. Demonstrators
were shot in the back as they retreated. One young guy's apparent crime was
holding his fingers in a peace sign in front of the troops. They shot him
multiple times, including once in the stomach at point-blank range."

Scahill says there was no
need for any demonstrator to hurl anything at the forces to spark police
violence, "It was clear from the jump that Timoney's men came prepared to
crack heads. And they did that over and over." (By Jeremy Scahill.)

Miami got $8.5 million in
federal funds from the $87 billion Iraq spending bill. Miami Mayor Manny
Diaz called the police actions last week "a model" for homeland security. As
in Philadelphia, the model also included deployment of undercover police as
provocateurs. At one point during a standoff with police, Scahill recalls, "
it appeared as though a group of protesters had gotten into a brawl amongst
themselves.

But as others moved in to
break up the melee, two of the guys pulled out electric tasers and shocked
protesters, before being liberated back behind police lines. These guys,
clearly undercover agents, were dressed like any other protester. One had a
sticker on his backpack that read: 'FTAA No Way.'"

Former California
assemblyman Tom Hayden described later how "Protesters seemed to skirmish
with heavily armored Miami police outside the Riande Hotel Thursday morning,
but nothing is at it seems ... These 'anarchists' were undercover police
officers whose mission was to provoke a confrontation.

"The crowd predictably
panicked, television cameras moved in, the police lines parted, and I
watched through a nearby hotel window as two undercover officers disguised
as 'anarchists,' thinking they were invisible, hugged each other. They
excitedly pulled tasers and other weapons out of their camouflage cargo
pants and slipped away in an unmarked police van."

Undercover cops embedded
themselves amidst demonstrators, and journalists embedded themselves with
the cops. Scahill describes how he and his colleagues were suddenly
confronted by Timoney and a crew of cops on bicycles: "As Timoney was
talking with his men, one of the guys on the bikes approached us with a
notepad. 'Can I have your names?' he asked. I thought he was a police
officer preparing a report. He had on a Miami police polo shirt, just like
Timoney's. He had a Miami police bike helmet, just like Timoney's. He had a
bike, just like Timoney's. In fact there was only one small detail that
separated him from Timoney -- a small badge around his neck identifying him
as a reporter with the Miami Herald. He was embedded with Chief Timoney.

"That reporter was one of
dozens who were embedded with the Miami forces.

We saw a Miami Herald
photographer who had somehow gotten pushed onto the "protesters' side" of a
standoff with the police. The photographer grew angrier and angrier before
he began hitting one of the young kids on the line. He punched him in the
back of the head before other journalists grabbed him and calmed him down.
His colleagues seemed shocked at the conduct. He was a big, big guy and was
wearing a bulletproof vest and a police-issued riot helmet, but I really
think he was scared of the skinny, dreadlocked bandana-clad protesters. He
had this look of panic on his face, like he had been in a scuffle with the
Viet Cong."

If Timoney had been in
charge of the London cops during Bush's visit, we'd probably now be looking
at news film of funeral processions for demonstrators crushed to death in
police-inspired stampedes. That's the way the "Miami model" is headed.